Product Description

When first published in 1977, A Literature of Their Own quickly set the stage for the creative explosion of feminist literary studies that transformed the field in the 1980s. Launching a major new area for literary investigation, the book uncovered the long but neglected tradition of women writers in England. A classic of feminist criticism, its impact continues to be felt today.

This revised and expanded edition contains a new introductory chapter surveying the book's reception and a new postscript chapter celebrating the legacy of feminism and feminist criticism in the efflorescence of contemporary British fiction by women.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187664 in Books
• Published on: 1998-12-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 392 pages

Amazon.com Review
Readers of this new, enlarged edition of the classic feminist study of British women novelists will find themselves delighted by Elaine Showalter's astute and acerbic critical intelligence. Showalter is one of the few scholars who can make her readers rush to their bookshelves to refute her point, or simply to experience again Jane Eyre, The Mill on the Floss, or the bitterly illuminating stories of Katherine Mansfield. Her chief innovation is to place the works of famous women writers beside those of the minor or forgotten, building a continuity of influence and inspiration as well as a more complete picture of the social conditions in which women's books have been produced. She has added a new introduction recounting, with justifiable pleasure, how daring and controversial her study seemed when it first appeared in 1977 (and how many enemies it made her). In an afterword, she touches on more recent developments in the women's novel in Britain, including the influence of the dazzling Angela Carter. --Regina Marler

Review
"A Literature of Their Own places the women novelists everyone has heard of ... in a new setting, considering them in relation to their relatively unknown female contemporaries. The resulting shift of perspective generates fresh social and literary understanding." -- Patricia Meyer Spacks, The New York Times Book Review

"Ought to be required reading for anyone who cares about women or the history of the novel. [This book] is a rare thing: a book of literary criticism that illuminates our lives." -- Erica Jong, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"This book is absolutely and immediately essential reading.... It will remain for a very long time a book to refer to again and again for both information and ideas." -- John Goode, The Times Higher Education Supplement

This book is absolutely and immediately essential reading.... It will remain for a very long time a book to refer to again and again for both information and ideas. -- Review

Review
A Literature of Their Own places the women novelists everyone has heard of ... in a new setting, considering them in relation to their relatively unknown female contemporaries. The resulting shift of perspective generates fresh social and literary understanding.
(Patricia Meyer Spacks The New York Times Book Review )

Ought to be required reading for anyone who cares about women or the history of the novel. [This book] is a rare thing: a book of literary criticism that illuminates our lives.
(Erica Jong The Los Angeles Times Book Review )

This book is absolutely and immediately essential reading.... It will remain for a very long time a book to refer to again and again for both information and ideas.
(John Goode The Times Higher Education Supplement )

Customer Reviews

A Literature of Their Own is Dr. Elaine Showalter's survey of British women authors from the Brontes to today
Anyone familiar with literary criticism recognizes the name of Elaine Showalter Ph.D. Showalter is an emrita professor of Princeton University who is the most famous feminine literary critic. Her new book "A Jury of Her Peers" on female authors in the USA has been reviewed by me on Amazon.
Like that later work I find "A Literature of Their Own" to be outstanding. Showalter's title was influenced by Virginia Woolf's famous essay " A Room of Their Own" in which she argued that for women to be able to write fiction they needed their own income, a quiet room and a spirit of androgyny.
Showalter reports that in typical English Literature courses there are only a quartet of major female authors who are highlighted. These women are Jane Austen; the Brontes; George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Showalter in this 1977 book (which developed out of her doctoral dissertation) aims to introduce modern readers to many of th worthy women authors who lived in England from the 1840s to such modern female artists as Angela Carter, Doris Lessing and Margaret Drabble.
Showalter shows how women had to face great odds to have their works published due to the Victorian belief in the inferiority of the female brain. Women were also restricted in their use of explicit language and sexual matters being regarded as "The Angel of the Household.
Women did gain ground in the publishing industry in the 1880-90s producing sensational fiction by such authors as Mary Ellen Braddon and also suffragate novels and periodical journalism.
This book is not the easiest read for a layperson new to female literature in Great Britain. The most interesting parts of the book were her discussions of the lives and careers of George Eliot (pseudonymn for Mary Ann Evans), the Brontes and especially Virginia Woolf.
The book should be required reading in any English Literature collegiate level courses. Elaine Showalter has done pioneering research on
a rich field of literary gold that more scholars and readers should familiarize themelves with in an effort to be well informed. The English woman should be proud of the literary endeavors of her sisters who weathered great hardships and challenges to produce stellar literature!

A Literature of Their Own
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